Fate, Destiny, Love and Death: Topoi in Henry Purcell and Nahum Tate's 'Dido and Aeneas'

In this thesis, I reinterpret the topoi represented in Henry Purcell and Nahum Tate’s early modern English opera 'Dido and Aeneas' (c. 1689) in order to evaluate the significance of the work to audiences today. Examining the rhetorical devices, literary as well as musical, together with those found in the performance texts provides an account of the underlying topoi that form the opera. Employing multi-disciplinary methodologies within the domains of education history, literary studies, historical musicology and production critique, I construct a theoretical argument about approaches toward reading and understanding works like Dido. In so doing, I argue that Dido is written in two languages — the spoken and the musical — contributing to wider knowledge because its amalgamation of textual and musical topoi has rarely if ever been discussed. In chapter 1, I assess recent literature on topoi in musicological studies outlining some questions — particularly the problematic synonymous use of topos and trope. First, I redefine what the topos denotes. Then, I expand on current arguments about topoi to contribute to the recent topic studies debate in musicology. In chapter 2, I propose (by means of intertextual interpretation) that principal personae Dido and Aeneas are politico-cultural constructs. I attribute differences in character portrayal to literary-historical conditions. I review humanist educational values which, following Erasmus, introduced the post-scholastic ‘pagan text’ curriculum. I investigate why Tate and Purcell chose to render their version of the Dido myth from a historico-pedagogical perspective. In chapter 3, I scrutinise the mechanism of musical rhetoric against the textual presentation of topoi. I compare the only six extant musical sources arguing that each is equally ‘meaningful.’ I survey 17th-, 18th- and 19th-century changing perceptions of topoi. My interpretation is a paradigm shift away from the traditional source hierarchy. Previously, codicologists seeking to ‘restore’ Purcell’s lost autograph (preserving his original intentions) viewed later sources as corrupt. In chapter 4, I appraise Dido’s reception in the modern era incorporating the opera-film as one of three case studies and various Regietheater stagings. I reveal how topoi depiction has significantly changed further in recent years. In conclusion, I argue that the representational methods and devices altered over time — deconstructed through various frames — enable the operatic topoi in Dido to retain their applicability and consequence to many generations.